Tuesday, 10 February 2015

Lack of transparency, Identifies as engine block of political instability, post election violence

Lack
of transparency in running the activities of political parties in the country
has been described as an engine block behind post-election violence; protests,
petitions and litigations heralding each general election.

A
frontline entrepreneur and community leader, Chief Joseph Nwakpadolu made this
concerned observation while intimating Daily Times, factors for engendering
internal democracy in our political system.

Nwakpadolu
who is the Chief Executive of Orpet Group of Companies Ltd, explained that
often time, selfish leaders at the helm of affairs of political parties thwart
the party primary’s elections either through denying their party members or
delegates as the case may be, freedom to chose the candidate of their choice amidst
numerous aspirants, or through shortchanging of the names of the main winners to
highest bidders while submitting the list to Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC).

According
to him, the unprincipled activities include acceptance of cross carpet
political money bag, who in furtherance hijack the party structure once they
bribed the hungry party leaders, who run the affairs of their political parties
as private estates in which they take unilateral decisions to favour themselves
and those they share interest with, instead of allowing the general opinion of
the people in the party folds to guide their actions.

He
added that the winning contestants, illegally ousted out of the race through manipulations,
most times, reject the unlawful defeat and either seek for justice in the court
of law or voluntarily decamp to other political party, from where they could
resolve to violence immediately they lose out on the general elections.

Nwakpadolu,
while noting that the dubious activities constitute a serious clog in the wheel
of progress as far as the growth of democracy is concerned in the ongoing
experimentation with civil rule in Nigeria, enjoined the leaders of various political
parties in the country to strictly adhere to the principles of rule of law, their
party ideology and interest of the electorates in all ramifications.

He
opined that equitable civil-rule and democratic principles must have firm root
in the parties and from there spread through the polity, because according to
him, internal running and strategic activities of political parties should be
made compulsorily transparent and subject to monitoring by relevant authorities
to avoid being hijacked and selfishly manipulated by unpatriotic elements.